We all have our favourite tools and widgets.
You might ask yourself, WHAT´S A WIDGET?
WIDGETBOX gives the following definition:
"A widget is a little mini-application that you can put into your blog or web page."
Widgets are fun and really bring life to your blog. Some of them are more than fun, they´re actually useful, for example they can show you who the visitors to your blog are, they can bring updated news or even provide a free space for chat.
This is a video which shows some widgets you can use.
When creating a new blog, what are your favorite tools or widgets? And why? We posed this question to bloggers around the globe via Twitter, and here are their replies. After reading these, let´s share our favourite tools in the comments area!
Blogging4Educators announces a Twitterpoll
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carlaarena @BlogEd08 Hard to decide...but I'll go for http://voicethread.com as you can embed it in a post or in the sidebar with audience interaction 10:31 AM February 01, 2008 from web in reply to BlogEd08
fceblog @blogging4educators Hmm hard to choose a widget...http://tinyurl.com/2qcgpq 12:04 PM February 01, 2008 from TwitterFox
englishstudio @BlogEd08 My favourite tool is Pownce http://snurl.com/1yr82 12:48 PM February 01, 2008 from twhirl in reply to BlogEd08
Durff @BlogEd08 favorite blog tool? Statcounter 11:26 AM February 01, 2008 from web in reply to BlogEd08
anamariacult @BlogEd08 My favourite blog tool is a geovisite globe counter which tells me how many daily visitors my blog has had and where they´re from 02:00 PM February 01, 2008 from web in reply to BlogEd08
csessums in re: favorite blogging app-- Twitter! 3:53 PM February 01, 2008 (Direct message via Twitter to Carla Arena)
susaneb I like wordpress -this is my blog http://susaneb.wordpress.com/
I also like blogspot and PBwiki....all fun (Direct message via Twitter to Carla Arena)
Dennis_Phoenix Favorite blog tool (blogs for students): onelook.com Explanation following. 04:46 PM February 01, 2008 (from direct message to BlogEd08)Dennis_Phoenix Why onelook.com? Besides Encarta, American Heritage, Mirriam-Webster, Cambridge, Oxford, others, also phrasal verbs & idioms. Very useful. 04:47 PM February 01, 2008 (from direct message to BlogEd08)
cristinacost @BlogEd08 so many: iPod player 4 fun; clustermaps 4 visitors' locations & twitter 4 micro communication.can't pick just 1!thanks Mary ;-) 06:58 PM February 01, 2008 from web in reply to BlogEd08
alicebarr @BlogEd08 Favorite Blog Tool: EduBlogs Favorite Widget http://www.dbachrach.com/sh... 08:12 PM February 01, 2008 from Snitter in reply to BlogEd08
cheryloakes50 My favorite blog too,is how I can blog right from my browser in FLOCK.
My favorite widget is the weather widget so I can see when it is snowing.
Next favorite widget is any twitter collector. 9:24 PM February 01, 2008 (E-mail message to Carla Arena)
Vicki Davis My favorite blog tool is the Firefox tag generator found at - https://addons. mozilla.org/ en-US/firefox/ addon/1384It is very important to generate technorati tags for your blog if you want to be part of the conversation, this tool not only tracks your previously used tags but generates them automatically for you. Vicki Davis 9:36 February 01, 2008 (E-mail message to Carla Arena)
joaoa @cristinacost Not a very easy question for me but at the moment I am loving the Flickr widget. 09:04 AM February 02, 2008 from Snitter in reply to cristinacost
illyac @BlogEd08 I'd choose cocomment: http://www.cocomment.com/ which lts me know when someone responds to a comment I made on another blog 12:14 PM February 02, 2008 from web in reply to BlogEd08
gladysbaya @BlogEd08 IP2 maps - anonymous for visitors, yet encouraging for bloggers" 12:08PM February 4, 2008Now it is YOUR turn! What is your favorite blog tool or widget and why?
11 comments:
Let me start the thread. Well, I have lots of favourite widgets, as you can see in my blog but there´s one which I really like and I include in almost every blog I create. It´s a geovisite counter which shows who my daily visitors are and where they´re from. It even shows who is on my page at that exact moment.
http://www.geovisite.com/en/
The other widgets I like can be seen at:
http://lifefeast.blogspot.com
anamaria
It's really hard to decide since I'm still novice to the whole blogging world. What I really like are clustermap (similar to geovisite, Anamaria) and the Statcounter. They give me a clear picture about the traffice on my blog and the countries of the visitors.
I also like Feevy, but I need to learn more about it and be careful about the blogs to add to it.
Lilian
My favorite blog tool/widget right now is coComment
Like Illya mentioned, this is a great tool because you always know if someone responds to a comment you made on another blog. Also, you can add a coComment widget to your blog, so you can display your comments and conversations to your blog readers. In that way, I think coComment can help your readers see other blogs that might be of interest to them, or to learn from the conversations that the blogger is participating in outside of his or her own blog. Commenting is an important part of building a community of bloggers, so being able to track comments using this tool and widget is quite helpful!
My favorite blog tool is Voice thread http://voicethread.com. It looks like live communication with real people and makes me feel closer to the coComment also. ;-)
Thanks to Joao's twitter, today I learned about Odiogo. I've just added it to my class blog Teachers that made a difference. Now each post can be listened to instead of read, and visitors can download the audio files to their MP3 players! They can even subscribe to the blog-podcast... Can't wait to use the blog with my new class as from May... they'll be impressed, I'm sure!
Each widget plays a different role in my different blogs, that's why I love them!
Gladys
Wow, what a great number of wonderful widgets!!! I will check some out later on.
I am quite careful with the widgets I place in my blogs because too many is overwhelming and students or visitors might get lost, especially if they are completely new to these tools.
There is one that has worked pretty well in my last class blogs cbox because my students like to post their doubts, general comments, questions they have and they help one another. Since ours is a reading course, they mainly post in Spanish. Here is an example of its use in my 2nd term class blog
Hard to decide which is my favorite widget since I'm still so new to this...But I'm having a great time reading about and checking out everybody else's favorites... I think I'm developing ADD or something--I keep getting distracted by all the new stuff to try! So far I like feevy and twitter quite a bit.
Gina
Thanks for sharing those wonderful tools. I look forward on how to use it so that it will give benefits into my site.
When you use widgets, it is also wise to use a map in Google analytics that shows you which parts of the website receives the most of clicks, so you can determine whether the widget is successful or not.
Widgets has different role/functions to response on. Aside from that it is very fun to use. Right?
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